Chapter 1602: Estra’s Oath
Back in Alterra, life was as usual—colorful and bright. People had bright eyes, smiles on their faces, and expressions full of life.
Well, not everyone.
Sniff
"I can’t believe I’ve been dumped like this!" Baron sniffled as he gulped a large jug of beer in the middle of the day.
He looked horrible; his chubby face was already chubbier. When he was blushing or intoxicated, he also blushed, but it was the ugly type of flush.
Baron gazed ugly when crying in general, but he didn’t care about that right now!!
"Wuuuuu— whyyyyy does it happen to me? I thought she was the one!"
"How could she betray me? Aren’t aborigine women safer about things like that?"
His drinking buddies—his cousins Jesse and Angelo—gasped and immediately covered his mouth.
"You idiot. Do you wanna be hated by all the women of Alterra?"
"I know, I’m sorry," he said, sniffling. His heart was in pain, and he ended up blabbering some controversial things.
It could be said that he had been complacent because the girl seemed to really like him.
To be fair, there was a lot of context to his and Elya’s breakup.
The conflict started because of a few business deals. After the Swagen Mercenary team, there were quite a few more teams from Twinwave that came, hoping to get good deals, too.
It was just that the Rolan and Swagen mercenary teams had already gained a huge advantage as the first arrivals.
One of the newcomers’ ways to get exclusivity was to target some of his (Baron) new products. It was just that, despite them approaching him first, he was biased towards his future in-laws—of course, he was—and gave the deal to them instead.
Who would think the bastards would be so vindictive?
Shortly after that, his long-distance girlfriend sent a post breaking up with him!
She was a week away from moving to Alterra!
Anyway, during this time, she had apparently been seduced and she fell for the bastard from the other team!
Eloi immediately sent letters to his team to investigate, of course, worried that his sister might have been held hostage.
It was just that... his team confirmed she was perfectly fine and happy.
Then they thought that she must’ve been fooled, or even brainwashed, and they used a lot of resources to test the other guy, even sending some skilled prostitutes in his way.
Seeing a man’s infidelity was also the fastest way to slap reality in the girl’s face.
Shockingly, the bloke who seduced her actually liked her back and remained faithful no matter what tests they put him through! After background checks, they also found out that the guy was fairly decent.
The dude’s boss actually wanted her to spy on Baron, but she felt guilty and told their team, but after some conflicts, she still didn’t break up with the guy.
And then... yesterday, they got news that they actually eloped!
"Gosh... sniff." Did he look like he’d hunt her down?!
Seriously! Sure, he was desperate to get a love life, and sure, he had the resources to find someone, but he wouldn’t actually go out of his way to run after a woman who no longer wanted to have anything to do with him! Probably!
It was around that time that the pub’s door opened, with a few people smiling as they chatted.
Baron sniffled, bitter at anyone who seemed giddy while he was suffering, though he naturally just drank it down.
Sadly, they sat down near them, and they weren’t quiet, so they could hear what they were talking about.
"Ah, naturally, pink hair is so beautiful."
"The guy is his brother, right? Didn’t think pink could look good on a dude."
"Ah, they also got a pretty redhead with them!"
Hearing the mention of some people they knew, Baron and his cousins couldn’t help but turn and gossip.
Jesse poked the nearest man at the other table. "What’s up?"
"Sean and Miss Veronica are back, and they brought a lot of people!"
Miss Veronica? The lovely pink-haired lady? And also her brother?
Sniff.
Let him look at eye candy to make himself feel better!
...
Veronica’s party had now entered Alterra and had left their Beast Carts in the inn. Other than Sean, the other guards headed straight to the Barracks to report.
Sean was there to escort them to the Center, where Estra had to make an oath not to say anything about Alterra for the next couple of months.
The thing about the oaths was that their effectiveness varied. If it was too overbearing and the person wasn’t a slave, the oath might not be honored. Further, there might also be a need to set a time limit.
Worse was that if the oath wasn’t honored, it’d still take the money, so some people had to do a costly trial-and-error until it was ’approved’. It also varied according to levels, which made things difficult for most people to perfectly implement oaths beyond the typical honesty oaths.
This was something from the past, of course. At this time, Mathilda’s team had already determined the parameters of ’allowed’ oaths, which was why they only limited Estra’s complete cut-off from her family to a few months at most. After that, it was ideal that she still wouldn’t contact them, but that’d be her own choice already.
After this, an aether message was sent to the concierge, which had an aether letter installed on the counter for whoever was serving behind it. Apparently, their party was asked to wait in the second-floor meeting rooms.
"The Elders called us?" Sean blinked when the concierge approached them with the message. The rest flinched but nodded, and even Estra felt a bit intimidated.
The elders from a town shouldn’t be intimidating to her as someone from a City, but somehow Estra felt it.
Perhaps it was because she truly wanted to stay, or perhaps because what she had seen so far was nothing short of amazing.
Estra bit her lips.
She really, really, wanted to stay.